London Assembly members have accused Transport for London (TfL) commissioner Mike Brown of watering down emails to mayor Sadiq Khan over delays to Crossrail and invited him to ‘reflect on whether he is fit to continue’.
The Assembly's Transport Committee has released a damning report looking at ‘the catalogue of factors’ that contributed to the ongoing delay to the cross-London rail link, whose central section should have opened in December 2018.
Mike Brown
Among the report’s findings are that emails between Crossrail and TfL suggest communications to Mr Khan were watered down by Mr Brown, ‘instead of flagging risks to the timetable early’.
Among its recommendations are that Mr Brown ‘must reflect on whether he is fit to continue to fulfill his role in TfL’.
Committee chair Caroline Pidgeon MBE said the inability of senior figures in the project ‘to push past their obsession with a December 2018 launch date’ was one of the main reasons ‘why their dream did not become a reality’.
She said: ‘It is a complete tragedy that one of the most highly anticipated engineering projects the world has ever seen has found itself in a mess of overspending, mismanagement and an embarrassingly long delay.
‘It is shameful that nobody at a senior level is willing to take responsibility for the failure of the project thus far. Crossrail’s former chairman, Sir Terry Morgan, stepped down; however, the evidence suggests that TfL commissioner Mike Brown was at the centre of decisions to dilute important information sent to the mayor.’
Other findings in the report are:
- Significant concerns raised by the independent reviewer, as early as January 2018, were largely ignored
- The desire to achieve the completion date overpowered any professional and critical assessment of risk.
- The Crossrail Executive did not have the skills required at the later stages of the project to adequately assess and understand risks as they became apparent.
Other recommendations are:
- The Mayor and TfL board must strengthen control over TfL and implement the necessary processes to allow them to remain fully informed and on top of the projects they are ultimately accountable for.
- Crossrail and similar future projects should have systems that encourage transparency, openness and a sense of accountability on all levels.
Mr Brown is due to appear at a public hearing of the committee on Thursday (25 April), where Crossrail is top of the agenda.
Crossrail's future timeline
Last week the BBC reported that Crossrail, to be known as the Elizabeth Line, may not open until 2021.
In response, a spokesperson for Crossrail said: ‘We are working very hard to finalise our new plan to deliver the opening of the Elizabeth line at the earliest opportunity and we will be providing more details later this month.’
Crossrail said that by end of this month it will be providing more details on its plan to complete and open the railway, known as the Earliest Opening Programme.
It gave an indication of the scale of work outstanding, which included completing the fit-out of the tunnels and stations, installing all the necessary systems, integrating the infrastructure and systems and testing the railway.
Although at some stations workers have started testing and are completing the final fit-out, at Paddington and Bond Street stations, there is still mechanical and electrical installation fit-out work underway.
Another major challenge at stations is completing the extensive communications systems installations that are needed, Crossrail said.
It said dynamic testing of the trains in the tunnels is underway and is ‘going well’. Trains have been operating in the tunnels at line speed (100 kph / 62 mph) using the new automatic signalling system.
Once dynamic testing is complete, the programme will then move into the trial running phase (running trains to the timetable) and trial operations phase.
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